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¿Quiénes son los chinos? ¿Son realmente tan sacrificados y trabajadores? ¿Promiscuos? ¿Les interesa lo que pasa fuera de su país? Antes de vivir en China, la periodista Ana Fuentes tenía una imagen estereotipada de sus gentes: personas infatigables, capaces de sobreponerse a cualquier adversidad, pero a menudo faltos de empatía. Hasta que los conoció. Durante cuatro años descubrió un país complejo y plagado de contradicciones, donde la economía crece a ritmo de vértigo, la corrupción alcanza niveles desorbitados e Internet es sistemáticamente censurado. Se ganó la confianza de la gente, en general reticente a hablar con periodistas, y entrevistó a decenas de personas gracias a fluidez en mandarín. Leer Cuando los chinos hablan es adentrarse en las casas subterráneas donde viven los campesinos que emigran a las ciudades, beber champán en las discotecas de moda con jóvenes millonarios y escuchar el relato escalofriante de un activista torturado. De la mano de Ana Fuentes conocemos a gente como la señora Zhen, una cuarentona que ejerce a escondidas la prostitución, a Ma Chengcheng, una joven consumista que vive pegada a su computador o a Xiao Qiong, una de las millones de mujeres que se definen como tongqi ("esposa de homosexual"), casada con su mejor amigo gay para huir ambos de la presión social. Los relatos de Fuentes, reales y fascinantes, son indispensables para comprender de primera mano los entresijos de un país destinado a convertirse en la primera potencia del mundo. La lealtad a la familia, la relación con el poder y la cultura milenaria y las aspiraciones de futuro salen a la luz en este libro en el que los chinos, por fin, hablan. .
Somebody has to look after a mischievous fox cub after its mother has been caught in a trap. Mandy and James learn to cope with a baby fox until it is strong enough to return to the wild.
An introduction to the history, geography, plants and animals, government, economy, cities and transportation, people, and social life and customs of Cuba, the largest island in the West Indies.
Having captivated readers with such gems of travel writing as Video Night in Kathmandu, Pico Iyer now presents a novel whose central character is another place: the melancholy, ebullient, and dazzlingly inconsistent island that is Castro's Cuba. "On almost every page you can smell the dust, the cheap perfume and the rum of Havana today, or better still, tonight."--Los Angeles Times.From the Trade Paperback edition.
In a unique analysis of Cuban literature inside and outside the country's borders, Eduardo Gonzalez looks closely at the work of three of the most important contemporary Cuban authors to write in the post-1959 diaspora: Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005), who left Cuba for good in 1965 and established himself in London; Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1931-2005), who settled in the United States; and Leonardo Padura Fuentes (b. 1955), who still lives and writes in Cuba. Through the positive experiences of exile and wandering that appear in their work, these three writers exhibit what Gonzalez calls "Romantic authorship," a deep connection to the Romantic spirit of irony and complex sublimity crafted in literature by Lord Byron, Thomas De Quincey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In Gonzalez's view, a writer becomes a belated Romantic by dint of exile adopted creatively with comic or tragic irony. Gonzalez weaves into his analysis related cinematic elements of myth, folktale, and the grotesque that appear in the work of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Pedro Almodovar. Placing the three Cuban writers in conversation with artists and thinkers from British and American literature, anthropology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cinema, Gonzalez ultimately provides a space in which Cuba and its literature, inside and outside its borders, are deprovincialized.
Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships. Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include * customs, values, and traditions* historical, religious, and political background* life at home* leisure, social, and cultural life* eating and drinking* do's, don'ts, and taboos* business practices* communication, spoken and unspoken "Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel "... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel "...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer "...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine "...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times
Imagine being unable to return to your homeland for thirty-six years. What would you do if you finally got a chance to go back? In 1996, after travel restrictions between the United States and Cuba were relaxed, Cuban exile Tony Mendoza answered that question. Taking his cameras, notebooks, and an unquenchable curiosity, he returned for his first visit to Cuba since the summer of 1960, when he emigrated with his family at age eighteen. In this book he presents over eighty evocative photographs accompanied by a beautifully written text that mingles the voices of many Cubans with his own to offer a compelling portrait of a resilient people awaiting the inevitable passing of the socialist system that has failed them. His photographs and interviews bear striking witness to the hardships and inequalities that exist in this workers#146; "paradise," where the daily struggle to make ends meet on an average income of eight dollars a month has created a longing for change even in formerly ardent revolutionaries. At the same time, Cuba#151;Going Back is an eloquent record of a personal journey back in time and memory that will resonate with viewers and readers both within and beyond the Cuban American community. It belongs on the shelves of anyone who values excellent photography and well-crafted prose.
Competitively priced, this book is the perfect companion to the more than thirty travel guides on Cuba available today.Beginning with the pre-Hispanic period, moving on to Cuba's struggle to maintain the revolution in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and finally ending with Fidel Castro's decision to step down in 2008, this slim volume provides the reader with an overview of the history of the tiny Caribbean island that so often has been at the center of world politics.Including a bibliography for further reading, this is a most useful introduction to Cuba's history for students, teachers, and others, as well as those visiting the island.This book is published to coincide with the expected lifting of the US government's ban on its citizens' travel to Cuba and will be actively marketed through travel agencies, in-flight magazines, and more.Available in both English (978-0-9804292-4-4) and Spanish (978-1-921438-60-8).Sergio Guerra-Vilaboy, a professor at the University of Havana, obtained a doctorate in history at the University of Leipzig. He is the author of numerous books on Latin American history and is currently the executive secretary of the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians.Oscar Loyola-Vega is a professor of history at the University of Havana.
Since Columbus arrived in 1492 and called Cuba "the most beautiful country that human eyes have ever seen," few places on earth have evoked such passion. The thirty-one writers inCuba in Mindoffer ample proof of the fascinations that have lured generations of travelers. In this richly varied anthology of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, we hear from such famous visitors as Anthony Trollope, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, and Graham Greene. Poets and journalists offer their responses, from Allen Ginsberg and Jayne Cortez to Alma Guillermoprieto and Robert Stone; and novelists weigh in with such fictional portrayals as Elmore Leonard'sCuba Libreand Pico Iyer'sCuba and the Night. Cuban exiles, immigrants, and their offspring provide their unique perspective, from Cristina García's essay "Simple Life" to excerpts from Oscar Hijuelos's novelThe Mambo Kings Play Songs of Loveand from Carlos Eire's memoirWaiting for Snow in Havana. Embracing salsa and santeria, politics and baseball, the island's sparkling beaches and the teeming Havana streets,Cuba in Mindcaptures the vibrancy, the contradictions, the heat and the humor of Cuba as shown by some of the best writers in the English language. Contributors: Thomas Barbour * José Barreiro * Ruth Behar * William Cullen Bryant * Jayne Cortez * Stephen Crane * Andrei Codrescu * Eleanor Early * Carlos Eire * Kimi Eisele * Cristina García * Allen Ginsberg * Graham Greene * Alma Guillermoprieto * Elizabeth Hanly * Ernest Hemingway * Consuelo Hermer * Oscar Hijuelos * Langston Hughes * Pico Iyer * Elmore Leonard * Rosa Lowinger * Marjorie May * Tom Miller * Holly Morris * Ricardo Pau-Llosa * Robert Stone * Jim Shepard * Isadora Tattlin * Anthony Trollope * Walter D. Wilcox
For more than two hundred years, Americans have imagined and described Cuba and its relationship to the United States by conjuring up a variety of striking images--Cuba as a woman, a neighbor, a ripe fruit, a child learning to ride a bicycle. Louis A. Perez Jr. offers a revealing history of these metaphorical and depictive motifs and discovers the powerful motives behind such characterizations of the island as they have persisted and changed since the early nineteenth century. Drawing on texts and visual images produced by Americans ranging from government officials, policy makers, and journalists to travelers, tourists, poets, and lyricists, Perez argues that these charged and coded images of persuasion and mediation were in service to America's imperial impulses over Cuba.
Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred from a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind in to the heart of an island that is about to blow - and take the whole world with it ...
When Cuba's centralized system for providing basic social services began to erode in the early 1990s, Christian and Afro-Cuban religious groups took on new social and political responsibilities. They began to work openly with state institutions on projects such as the promotion of Afro-Cuban heritage to encourage tourism, and community welfare initiatives to confront drug use, prostitution, and housing decay. In this rich ethnography, the anthropologist Adrian H. Hearn provides a detailed, on-the-ground analysis of how the Cuban state and local religious groups collaborate on community development projects and work with the many foreign development agencies operating in Cuba. Hearn argues that the growing number of collaborations between state and non-state actors has begun to consolidate the foundations of a civil society in Cuba. While conducting research, Hearn lived for one year each in two Santera temple-houses: one located in Old Havana and the other in Santiago de Cuba. During those stays he conducted numerous interviews: with the historian of Havana and the conservationist of Santiago de Cuba (officials roughly equivalent to mayors in the United States), acclaimed writers, influential leaders of Afro-Cuban religions, and many citizens involved in community development initiatives. Hearn draws on those interviews, his participant observation in the temple-houses, case studies, and archival research to convey the daily life experiences and motivations of religious practitioners, development workers, and politicians. Using the concept of social capital, he explains the state's desire to incorporate tightly knit religious groups into its community development projects, and he illuminates a fundamental challenge facing Cuba's religious communities: how to maintain their spiritual integrity and internal solidarity while participating in state-directed projects.
The remarkable new novel in the Doc Ford series by New York Times-bestselling author Randy Wayne White. Doc Ford's old friend, General Juan Garcia, has gone into the lucrative business of smuggling Cuban baseball players into the U.S. He is also feasting on profits made by buying historical treasures for pennies on the dollar. He prefers what dealers call HPC items--high-profile collectibles--but when he manages to obtain a collection of letters written by Fidel Castro between 1960-62 to a secret girlfriend, it's not a matter of money anymore. Garcia has stumbled way out of his depth.First Garcia disappears, and then the man to whom he sold the letters. When Doc Ford begins to investigate, he soon becomes convinced that those letters contain a secret that someone, or some powerful agency, cannot allow to be made public.A lot happened between Cuba and the United States from 1960-62. Many men died. A few more will hardly be noticed.From the Hardcover edition.
This book explores the tensions and contradictions of post-Soviet-era Cuba's use of tourism, a fundamentally capitalist tool, to sustain its socialist economy.
When Fidel Castro allows thousands of Cubans to depart for America in the Mariel Boatlift, he exports the worst criminals and undesirables of his country along with them. To monitor the situation, the CIA sends infiltrators to Cuba-where they vanish without a trace. In desperation, the Agency turns to ex-Navy SEAL Dusky MacMorgan to go in and find out what happened. Amid the chaos and deception in Mariel's savage underworld, MacMorgan must keep on his toes and off the radar if he's going to discover the truth without disappearing himself. .
In the Cuban town of Sagua la Grande, a young Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria peers out the window of his family home on the morning of the Nochebuena fiesta as preparations begin for the slaughter of a feast day pig. The author recalls 'watching them at a distance, though thinking, fearing, that once I grew older I would have to participate in the whole event'. Now an acclaimed scholar of Latin American literature, Gonzalez Echevarria returns to the rituals that defined his young life in Cuban Fiestas. Drawing from art, literature, film, and even the national sport of baseball, he vividly reveals the fiesta as a dynamic force of both destruction and renewal in the life of a people. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria masterfully exposes the distinctive elements of the fiesta cubana that give depth and coherence to more than two centuries of Cuban cultural life. Reaching back to nineteenth-century traditions of Cuban art and literature, and augmenting them, in the twentieth, with the arts of narrative, the aesthetic performances of sport and entertainment in nightclubs, on the baseball diamond, and in movie theatres, "Cuban Fiestas" renders the lilting strains of the fiesta and drum beats of the passage of time as keys to understanding the dynamic quality of Cuban culture. Gonzalez Echevarria's explorations are also illuminated by autobiographical vignettes that unveil the ever-shifting impact of the fiesta on the author's own story of exile and return.
What is Cuban cuisine? A delectable intermingling of Spanish, Portuguese, Arabian, Chinese, and African culinary traditions--a true melting pot of all the influences that combine in Cuban culture.Now, Raquel Rabade Roque gives us the definitive book of Cuban cuisine: encyclopedic in its range, but intimate and accessible in tone with more than five hundred recipes for classic, home-style dishes--from black bean soup to pork empanadas, from ropa vieja to black beans and croquetas, from tostones to arroz con pollo, from churros to café con leche--as well as the vividly told stories behind the recipes.Based on the author's family recipes, this is real Cuban cooking presented with today's busy cooks in mind. Whether you are an experienced cook or a novice, a lover of Cuban cuisine or just discovering it, The Cuban Kitchen will become an essential part of your kitchen library.From the Trade Paperback edition.
In The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History, Second Edition, Don Munton and David A. Welch distill the best current scholarship on the Cuban missile crisis into a brief and accessible narrative history. The authors draw on newly available documents to provide a comprehensive treatment of its causes, events, consequences, and significance. Stressing the importance of context in relation to the genesis, conduct, and resolution of the crisis, Munton and Welch examine events from the U. S. ,Soviet, and Cuban angles, revealing the vital role that differences in national perspectives played at every stage. While the book provides a concise, up-to-date look at this pivotal event, it also notes gaps and mysteries in the historical record and highlights important persistent interpretive disputes. The authors provide a detailed guide to relevant literature and film for those who wish to explore further. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the crisis, this revised and updated edition of The Cuban Missile Crisis is ideal for undergraduate courses on the 1960s, U. S. foreign policy, the Cold War, twentieth-century world history, and comparative foreign policy.
Describes the details of the 1962 confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the placement of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba.
This book exposes the misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that have shaped the still dominant but largely mythical version of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks of secret Cuban missile crisis deliberations. A half-century after the event it is surely time to demonstrate, once and for all, that RFK's Thirteen Days and the personal memoirs of other ExComm members cannot be taken seriously as historically accurate accounts of the ExComm meetings.
Angola, a former Portuguese colony in southern central Africa, gained independence in 1975 and almost immediately plunged into more than two decades of conflict and crisis. Fidel Castro sent Cuban military troops to Angola in support of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), leading to its ascension to power despite facing threats both international and domestic. What is less known, and what Cubans in Angola brings to light, is the significant role Cubans played in the transformation of civil society in Angola during these years. Offering not just military support but also political, medical, administrative, and technical expertise as well as educational assistance, the Cuban presence in Angola is a unique example of transatlantic cooperation between two formerly colonized nations in the global South.
In this book, Martin Carnoy explores the surprising success of the Cuban educational system, where the average elementary school student learns much more than her Latin American peers. In developing the case for Cuba's supportive social context and centralized management of education, Carnoy asks important questions about educational systems in general. How responsible should government be for creating environments that encourage academic achievement? How much autonomy should teachers and schools have over their classrooms? Is there an inherent tradeoff between promoting individual choice and a better system of schooling? Cuba's Academic Advantage challenges many prevailing views about the effectiveness of educational markets, school and teacher autonomy, decentralized decision-making, and government responsibility for children's social and economic welfare. Drawing on interviews with teachers, principals, and policymakers, as well as hours of videotaped material taken in more than 30 classrooms, this book brings new evidence to bear on controversial educational issues currently under debate in many countries.
Approaching an uncertain future without Fidel Castro, and still reeling from a downturn at the end of the cold war, Cuba must act decisively to improve its economy and living conditions. One of the major challenges facing the impoverished island nation is securing access to energy resources that are sufficient to meet the needs of its revitalization and development goals. What steps can Cuba take to achieve both short- and long-term energy sustainability and self-sufficiency? In this timely analysis, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado and his colleagues answer that question. Cuba's Energy Future sets the geostrategic context within which Cuba is operating. The book provides an overview of the evolving relations among Caribbean states and explains why Cuba and its longtime nemesis the United States should look for ways to cooperate on developing energy resources. The possible role of oil companies is explored, as is Cuba's energy relationship with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.The second section of Cuba's Energy Future features economic and technical appraisals, economic projections, and trends affecting Cuba's energy needs, including oil and natural gas potential, the country's antiquated electric power sector, and the role of biofuels such as sugarcane ethanol. The concluding section focuses on the conditions necessary for, and the mutual benefits of, greater cooperative engagement with the United States.Contributors: Juan A. B. Belt (Chemonics International, formerly USAID), Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado (University of Nebraska-Omaha and University of Georgia), Amy Myers Jaffe (Rice University), Jorge R. Piñón (Florida International University), Ronald Soligo (Rice University).
Approaching an uncertain future without Fidel Castro, and still reeling from a downturn at the end of the cold war, Cuba must act decisively to improve its economy and living conditions. One of the major challenges facing the impoverished island nation is securing access to energy resources that are sufficient to meet the needs of its revitalization and development goals. What steps can Cuba take to achieve both short- and long-term energy sustainability and self-sufficiency? In this timely analysis, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado and his colleagues answer that question. Cuba's Energy Future sets the geostrategic context within which Cuba is operating. The book provides an overview of the evolving relations among Caribbean states and explains why Cuba and its longtime nemesis the United States should look for ways to cooperate on developing energy resources. The possible role of oil companies is explored, as is Cuba's energy relationship with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.The second section of Cuba's Energy Future features economic and technical appraisals, economic projections, and trends affecting Cuba's energy needs, including oil and natural gas potential, the country's antiquated electric power sector, and the role of biofuels such as sugarcane ethanol. The concluding section focuses on the conditions necessary for, and the mutual benefits of, greater cooperative engagement with the United States.Contributors: Juan A. B. Belt (Chemonics International, formerly USAID), Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado (University of Nebraska-Omaha and University of Georgia), Amy Myers Jaffe (Rice University), Jorge R. Pi??n (Florida International University), Ronald Soligo (Rice University).
Since the 19th century, assertions of a common, racially-mixed Cuban identity based on acceptance of African descent have challenged the view of Cubans as racially white. For the past two centuries, these competing views of Cuban racial identity have remained in continuous tension, while Cuban women and men make their own racially oriented choices in family formation. Cuba's Racial Crucible explores the historical dynamics of Cuban race relations by highlighting the racially selective reproductive practices and genealogical memories associated with family formation. Karen Y. Morrison reads archival, oral-history, and literary sources to demonstrate the ideological centrality and inseparability of "race," "nation," and "family," in definitions of Cuban identity. Morrison analyzes the conditions that supported the social advance and decline of notions of white racial superiority, nationalist projections of racial hybridity, and pride in African descent.
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